


Love Who You Love (You Only Live Once)

by lindsey_grissom



Category: Vicious (TV)
Genre: M/M, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-08
Updated: 2014-04-08
Packaged: 2018-01-18 16:47:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1435645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lindsey_grissom/pseuds/lindsey_grissom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You exchanged rings sometime in the eighties (1983, November 12th, 1am because you couldn't wait any longer and he always looked so delicious rumpled from sleep).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love Who You Love (You Only Live Once)

It's not the life you imagined you'd have all those years ago. Time lost in late nights and early lectures, sitting on the stone steps outside the dining hall and watching all those pretty boys walk past. Thinking _maybe that one, maybe him_ and knowing you couldn't go up to them and ask, just in case. 

You thought you'd be one of the greats. Freddie Thornhill; taking the world by storm. Your name in lights and on billboards. You would perform Shakespeare like he was there, whispering his words in your ear and those writers in your classes, they'd write parts just for you. You would be famous but more than that, you would be loved. By hundreds, thousands, by a partner who stood by your side and supported you. Someone you'd take to opening nights, who'd hang off your arm. Someone you wouldn't have to hide. You were young and you knew you wouldn't have to hide away for ever. 

So you looked at those boys in their stiff collars and pressed trousers and you thought _maybe, maybe_ until there he was and you just thought _yes_.

\---

Stuart Bixby was handsome and young. He had an accent that changed with every person he spoke to and a smile that was just a bit too kind to everyone. He smiled and touched their arms and you thought _he's going to get arrested_. 

You stepped in, stepped up, held out your hand and bowed a little (the whole world is a stage and you were made to shine on it) and you told yourself you had to. It had nothing to do with the way his fingers slipped across your own, the sun bleaching the tips of his hair, the gentle curve of his neck. He needed someone to hold him back, to make him see the way the world really was and you, you could do that. You would do that and bear the sacrifice.

He told you he was going to be a model, he worked in a bar and he was going to model and travel the world. You told him you were going to be an actor and he said you had the voice for it, the projection. 

You fell in love over tea and crumpets, hot butter that slipped over his fingers and you could still taste it on them when you got back to his rooms. If you were another person, a kinder one, you would wonder why he fell for you. But you're not and he hasn't ever really said.

\---

He used to say _tomorrow, tomorrow_ like the world was just a little out of your reach but you'd get there eventually, catch up with it _tomorrow_. He was the dreamer and you were the actor and the greatest part you ever played was pretending you thought that way too.

\---

You needed headshots, a résumé and a real script. He said he didn't mind working at the bar a little longer, he wasn't going to lose his looks any time soon and besides, he was still getting his degree, he didn't need to ruin all that hard work by getting picked up now. You said _okay_ and spent the money on the photos and printers, bought him a single rose from the man who said _your girlfriend will love it_. Left it on his pillow with a photo and a thank you that was really more of an apology. You never told him this would be the last time, didn't say that tomorrow would be his turn. He was the dreamer and you could never have lied to him like that.

\---

You don't think you were always like this; cutting. You've always fought, always thrown words and pain at each other until the dust clears and you're both standing alone but still _there, together_ and it doesn't seem to matter anymore. But you're sure that there used to be a time when you could say _i love you_ and _i need you_ , a time when you would look at him and want him so desperately you could barely see straight until you told him. A time when telling him how he still makes your heart thump in your chest whenever he smiles, wouldn't make you want to tear the world apart, wouldn't leave your mouth and become _you are nothing_ in the space in between. 

You remember a time when he would describe you with poetry and he could temper your harsh words (they started with you, they always started with you) with something that made you smile. Made you brush your fingers against the gathering lines in the corners of his eyes and want to hold onto him as long as you could.

You can't remember when that changed. When the soft words deserted you completely and the only time you were kind was under attack from outsiders. You think it was probably the fault of time itself. A slow slide, your words wearing away at his kindness until he was like you, cold and hard on the outside, the soft edges hidden away beneath.

You tell him sometimes that you've given him everything he ever wanted and it's true, but the things you've taken away; a better man couldn't live with himself.

\---

You exchanged rings sometime in the eighties (1983, November 12th, 1am because you couldn't wait any longer and he always looked so delicious rumpled from sleep). You did it together, alone, just four hands and two rings, just a little swap and the metal slid up past your knuckle and even though you didn't say the words, you promised yourself that you would look after him for as long as you could.

The world was a different place then, you were _special friends_ said in whispers and elbow-to-rib nudges. It was still dangerous to walk alone down the street, but terrifying to do it together. The ring on your finger kept you safer. Those that knew, they knew what it meant. But the others, their eyes flickered over you, didn't stop, didn't find fault with the two men sitting together at the corner table; saw the rings and thought _old friends, wives away_. You never pretended there was anyone but Stuart in your life, but you were happy to let the ignorant think what they liked, so long as he was safe, you could do that at least.

You see people now, men on the streets with their hands clasped together, rings glinting in the sun and you think you might have liked to do that, might have enjoyed showing the world that the (never a) model at your side was _yours_. You like to think that maybe Stuart would have enjoyed showing you off too, just a little, when you were darker-haired and young.

But even though there was no ceremony, even though you wouldn't get out of bed and turn up the heat, wouldn't make him a cup of tea or wait until the time you planned and pull out the champagne, he let you put the ring on his finger and pushed the other on yours and he kissed you on the corner of your mouth and he told you that was enough. You were enough.

\---

Time made old men of you. 

Slowly, so you wouldn't notice, so that one day you would look in the mirror and you weren't young anymore. The world wasn't yours to take.

You sold the flat, the cottage, the apartment, the house. You moved around until you settled in the duplex and you raised enough dogs that if they'd been children you could have hired a singing nun. 

You had bit-parts in television, walk on parts on the stage. You got your name up eventually, bright white and lit up and your character from Doctor Who is still written about at least once a week in some fan 'blog' on the internet. Stuart had the parties, the socialite life that he would have had as a model. He got the hosting and it's a good thing really, that you never got too successful because he has been cutting up pre-packaged sandwiches to serve his guests since the first Christmas party at College. 

Somehow you grew up, both of you. Spent less time apart and more curled up together in atmospheric lighting and this part of the world that's just yours. The words you say don't hurt anymore, if they ever really did. You've made your own language and you think you both understand it better than English now. You snap and snarl, you pick and rip and tear and there is nothing between you that is untouchable, that can't be twisted and hurled at each other when you're fighting about nothing at all. You go through those motions because late at night when the audience has gone home, you can sit across the kitchen table and pass a single glass of wine between you, can hold hands and say _i'm sorry_ and _i wouldn't be here without you_ and _it hasn't been a bad life, ours_. 

\---

This isn't where you thought your life would end up, a duplex apartment in London with a handful of friends (a hag, an old queen, a mad old bat and a boy who seems younger than you ever could have been) and a little wall for your awards. Forty-nine years with the same man at your side though, that counts for something. That says there must be something there that's worth staying for.

You could tell him now, walk down the stairs, wave your hands and tell him he should stop worrying, you still see him the way he was at nineteen. That you closed your eyes last night, turned your head away because watching him tip over the edge is still too much for you to handle, that you still saw it even then, because you _always_ see him like that. You could take the tea he offers, the sugar cube he throws in with a florish and tell him it's been almost half a century; _of course_ you never wanted any other life but this one you've made with him.

But it's been nearly half a century and he hasn't once asked you to change. So you open your mouth as soon as he puts down the phone, take the first step down the staircase and tell him you thought the foxes had gotten in with all the screeching he was doing. You settle next to him on the sofa with your tea and tell him you are taking him out to dinner tonight because you're showing signs of malnutrition from the abomination he calls cooking and when he scowls and tells you you can do with losing a few pounds actually, you hold in your smile and sip your tea.

\---

You leave a photo on his pillow before bed, with a rose and a thank you like you have every Friday since the first and he kisses the corner of your mouth. 

\---

Like always, it's enough.


End file.
